Funeral
by Rasiaa
Summary: Aunt Petunia passed on, and unlike Uncle Vernon, she wanted Harry to be invited to the funeral. So Harry went, with unexpected results.


_I have a head cannon that says that Teddy was adopted by Harry and Ginny when he was a child, and another that Dudley's kid was magical._

* * *

Harry had, of course, heard about his uncle's death several years prior. It had been a passing call made by Dudley and, since Harry had not received an invitation to the funeral, that had been that. He had not grieved the man who made his childhood a living hell, and he had not been blamed for it.

Rarely did the muggle phone ever ring. It was something Harry had insisted been installed into the kitchen wall at Grimmauld Place when he and Ron renovated the place after the war. Ron hadn't really seen the point of it, but Harry argued that since he made up with Dudley, it would be rude to expect the man to find an owl somewhere if he ever had a reason to get into contact. Ron called him barmy and left him to it.

So when it started ringing three weeks before September first, Teddy leapt a foot into the air and swore quietly when the syrup for the pancakes spilled over the table. "Clean that up," Ginny said, peering at the seventeen year old over a cup of tea. As Teddy moved to get his wand from his pocket, she added, "Without magic."

Teddy gave her an incredulous look. "I'm of age!" he protested. She shrugged.

"Not as long as you live under my roof, you're not," she told him, grinning when he scoffed and stormed off to get paper towels from the closet down the hall. Ginny turned her gaze toward Harry, then nodded to the phone. "It's still ringing," she said.

He shrugged and picked up the phone. "You're more entertaining," he said, then pressed the phone to his ear. "Hello?" he said, as Ginny snorted and got up from the table.

"Harry?" a voice asked. He hummed in reply, eyes watching Ginny as she moved around the kitchen. "Harry, it's Dudley."

That derailed his train of thought. His gaze moved to the floor as he focused on the conversation. "Hey, Big D. What's up?" he greeted, already sensing something was wrong, a sinking feeling in his gut. Ginny looked up from the dishes, eyes wide. He waved at her, and she narrowed her eyes but still returned to washing the plates from that morning. Vaguely, Harry wished they had a dishwasher, since most of the time Ginny wound up using magic and that resulted in water on the floor.

"Well, two things, really," Dudley said, voice flat. "The first is that my daughter turned eleven and she got one of those letters."

Knowing that that wasn't necessarily a good thing, he returned with, "Okay. Do you want me to talk you and your wife through it?"

Dudley said, "Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great. I only know so much from when you left, you know?" and Harry hummed again in reply. "The second thing," Dudley continued, "is that Mum passed about a week ago and we read the will yesterday."

"Yeah?" Harry asked, following with, "I'm sorry about that."

He could practically see Dudley shrug through the phone. "She's been sick, lately, so we've been preparing," he said, voice cracking slightly. Harry was wise enough not to mention it. "Anyway, the funeral is in two days at the church we used to go to, you remember?"

"Yes," Harry agreed, thinking of the Sunday rituals that stopped when he turned ten and it became apparent that the 'beating the magic out of him' tactic hadn't worked. "Is this my invitation?" he questioned.

"Uh, yeah," Dudley agreed, sounding awkward about it. "It's at ten in the morning."

"Okay," he said, before he asked, "Was there anything else?"

There was a moment of silence on Dudley's end, but Harry wasn't worried. He leaned on the wall and shrugged in response to Ginny's inquisitive look. Then Dudley spoke, "I'll just tell you in two days, yeah?"

"Sure. We'll also talk about your daughter then, maybe after, if you like?" Harry said, looking aimlessly around his kitchen. Teddy returned with the paper towels and Harry watched him clean the mess, biting his lip to keep from laughing when the towels merely stuck to the table instead of clearing away the syrup. Teddy let out a string of colorful curses and pulled his hand away, looking disgusted.

"Maybe," Dudley said. "See you then. Bye now," he finished, and he hung up.

Harry returned the phone to the carrier attached to the wall, crossing his arms across his chest and his right ankle over his left to watch his adopted oldest son- godson, honestly, though the official adoption had been successful when Teddy was four, thanks to Andromeda's sickness- try to figure out how to clean syrup. He snickered and the teenager glared at him before renewing his efforts.

"Well, at least you didn't try to argue with me," Ginny said, also laughing. She cleaned the entire mess with a wave of her wand, and Teddy threw up his hands.

"What was the point of that, Mum?" he demanded, sounding fed up. Harry let out a laugh and Ginny grinned.

"I wanted to see you squirm a bit," she confessed, not looking regretful in the least. Teddy snorted and walked out of the kitchen, probably to his room where Harry knew he wouldn't reappear from until dinner. Ginny turned to Harry and rested her hands on her hips, staring at him. "What was that?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Dudley. His daughter has a Hogwarts letter and Aunt Petunia made sure I got an invitation to her funeral in two days."

"Goodness," Ginny said, looking briefly at the dishes before she waved her wand to make them wash themselves. Harry watched them move regretfully for a second before Ginny slid up to him, her hands winding themselves around his neck. His hands automatically dropped to her waist and he looked down to meet her eyes. "That sounds stressful," she muttered, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him.

They pulled apart and she rested her hands on his chest, while he responded to her comment, "I've had worse."

She frowned and looked up to see his eyes. "You've always had worse," she muttered, sounding like she regretted that.

He shrugged and pressed a lingering kiss to her lips.

…

The churchyard was quiet, but Harry had expected that. It usually was on a Saturday morning, after all. Running his hand through his hair, he stuffed his other hand in his suit's pocket and quietly mused on the strangeness of how strange it was to be in muggle clothing while he walked to the front door.

A blonde woman who he assumed was Dudley's wife stood greeting people, dabbing at her cheeks with a tissue every once in a while. She was dressed in a black mourning dress, with her hair curled. She wasn't wearing any jewelry and had flats on, which Harry found odd, since most women he interacted with usually had at least a pair of earrings in their ears. She stood in front of a collage of pictures of Petunia, and he saw with a jolt that there was one of his parents and his aunt and uncle in the collage as well. Neither couple looked particularly happy, though his mother looked pleased, and Harry wondered where Dudley had found the picture and what had driven him to include it.

The woman locked gazes with him and so he moved forward to shake her outstretched hand, her other hand handing him an Order of Service, which he refused. "Harry Potter," he introduced. "Petunia was my aunt," he said.

She nodded in recognition. "Of course," she said. "I'm Rowan Dursley, Dudley's wife," she introduced. "I've only heard of you recently, when Dudley said you'd be able to help with our daughter."

He nodded, trailing his eyes over the pictures again before looking at the woman again. "She got a letter, Dudley told me," he said. "I can imagine it was a bit shocking." He fixed Rowan with a stern look he often saved only for his son James. "Please don't punish her for it," he said. "It's not something she can help."

She looked shocked. "I'd never," she told him, sounding hurt that he'd even suggest it.

"Yes, well, I've made house calls for this sort of situation before, and I knew my uncle, and Dudley, when I was younger and sometimes people aren't so… pleased, we'll say, of this unusual circumstance," he informed her lazily, leaning back on his heels.

She looked like she had more to say on the subject, but Dudley emerged from the church, looking, for a moment, like he was hardly holding himself together. That changed as soon as he caught sight of Harry, however, and Harry figured that Dudley had assumed Rowan would be out here alone. "Hey, Dudley," Harry greeted, and Dudley nodded at him, shaking his hand briefly before looking at Rowan.

"It's starting. Harry, you have a reserved seat at the front," is all he said before he disappeared back inside. He raised his eyebrows but followed his cousin inside, ignoring the curious glances of the other people seated in the church pews. He took a seat on Dudley's right, ripping off the printed-paper with his name on it just before he sat down. Rowan took the seat on Dudley's left, and the priest- or whoever it was that ran these sort of things, Harry really didn't know- started the eulogy.

It dragged on, as funerals, Harry found, were wont to do. He was not called on to speak, thankfully, since he had prepared nothing, though he wouldn't have put it past Dudley to forget to tell him to prepare a speech. Having attended more funerals than he would have ever liked to in his life, he didn't really listen, instead staring at the pew in an act of paying attention. Thus, he blinked in confusion when the service was ended by the churchman, but nonetheless wasn't called out on it, much to his relief.

He stayed only for a few minutes before taking his leave, not having any reason, nor desire to chat with people he didn't know about a woman he didn't like- or know very well, if he was honest- in the first place. He walked around to the back of the church and started to walk to the small cluster of trees across a small parking lot when he heard someone call his name. He turned.

Dudley was running to catch up to him, and the man looked relieved when Harry stopped and turned around. "Harry," Dudley panted, "You're not leaving?" he asked.

Harry looked around, gesturing to the building and then to the parking lot. "You're the only one I know here, Dudley, and you have a lot of people to thank for coming," he pointed out, turning to leave. "I see no reason to stay, not when I've left Teddy in charge of the other three, and my house is probably trashed as a result."

"I need to talk to you about the will," Dudley said, stopping him. He faced Dudley once more, eyebrows raised.

"Did Aunt Petunia leave something for me?" he asked lightly, not expecting for her to have done so. Nevertheless, Dudley nodded.

"Four Privet Drive and around five thousand pounds," he confirmed.

He stared at Dudley for a moment. Then he said, "I'm one of the richest men in the world and that's your childhood home, you can keep all of it."

Dudley looked flabbergasted. "I don't need it, not really. She left me everything else."

Harry shrugged in response. "Well, what do you want to do with it, then?" he asked.

Here, it was Dudley's turn to shrug. "I plan on leaving the house in your care and mailing you the codes to the money," he told him. "She left it for you, so you should keep it."

Harry groaned. "I have more houses than I know what to do with," he complained.

"Sucks for you," Dudley said, sounding a mix between amused, unsympathetic, and envious. "I would only sell it if you don't take it, anyway."

Harry considered that for a moment. Then he waved his hand dismissively. "I suppose I'll just leave it under my youngest son's name, to be inherited when he turns seventeen," he muttered, already thinking of the long day he would have to spend with goblins to accomplish that.

"Okay then," Dudley returned, sounding like he'd rather not deal with that. Harry couldn't blame him. "When can you come to my house to talk about magic?" he asked, and Harry was quietly impressed his cousin even managed to get the word out.

"Whenever you want me to, just know that it has to be before the last week of August or so, to allow you plenty of time to get the proper supplies and such," Harry informed. "You know my number."

Dudley nodded. "Okay. Okay," he said. "Talk later, then?" he asked, and Harry nodded.

Harry turned around and stepped off the sidewalk, disaparating before his foot hit the ground, a loud crack following his disappearance.


End file.
